


The Felix Story

by KittyGee (WindCrystal)



Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Best Friends, Bisexual Character, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Both healthy and unhealthy relationships at the same time, Complicated Relationships, Dissociation, Established Relationship, Explicit Language, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Good Relationships with Metamours, Healthy Relationships, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Main Character Has Issues, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned parental abuse, Modern Era, Multi, OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Original Character(s), POV Bisexual Character, POV Second Person, Panic Attacks, Pansexual Character, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Platonic Relationships, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Post-Break Up, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Queer Character, Queer Families, Queer Themes, Queerplatonic Relationships, Romantic Friendship, Slice of Life, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Therapy, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, mentioned past abuse, regular updates, relationship anarchy, though to be honest it's more of a very strange form of first person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-11-13
Packaged: 2018-12-29 20:23:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindCrystal/pseuds/KittyGee
Summary: Your name is Felix MacDonald, and to be honest you're kind of an absolute train wreck right now. Your story starts with you curled up on your apartment floor, too anxious to make it out the door to work, still reeling from your most recent breakup with not one but two boyfriends, barely making rent, barely functioning at all, and realizing that after a lifetime of poor decisions and bad luck, you have finally hit rock bottom.For the first time in your life, you decide you should probably do something about that.And so begins your so-called journey to recovery, though you're not the type to call it that. You have your one remaining partner RJ supporting you on one side, your metamour Taylor on the other, a thimbleful of hope at your back, and the weight of your world and your unresolved issues pressing in on all sides. You're not even sure if you can change anything at this point in your life, but to be fair, when you've reached rock bottom, the only way you can possibly go is up.





	1. Atlas Took 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings for this chapter: graphic panic/anxiety attack

Your name is Felix MacDonald, and you are a worthless piece of shit.

That’s a pretty harsh way to look at yourself, and you know it. You’ve been told so many times, sometimes gently, sometimes with the riotous fury of an extremely pissed guardian angel, by your roommate-cum-best friend-cum-life partner-cum-you don’t even fucking know at this point. Your web of relationships has long since lost any thread of cohesion. You love her, she loves you, your relationship isn’t technically dating but it may as well be, her fiancé is an awesome chill other roommate/metamour who stands on the sidelines nodding in acceptance, and then off in an entirely unrelated galaxy you’ve got your two boyfriends—your two ex-boyfriends—your two ex-boyfriends plural as in together as in big gay rainbow glitter polyamorous threesome as in literally the best relationship you’ve ever had in your whole miserable life aside from the whole roommate/partner/not-dating thing and holy fuck, holy fucking shit no wonder people think you’re a freak, you dared to find happiness in this supremely unstable fucked up network of affection and then you ruined it all, you piece of shit you— 

Okay. Okay. Breathe. Let’s take this from the top. 

You are sitting inside your apartment. You are on the floor. Your back is to the wall, and you’re probably crying a little, but it’s hard to say. Your body is in pieces. Your arms lie at your sides. Your feet are still pacing a rut in the kitchen linoleum somewhere off to the left. Your mind is not attached to your brain, and you watch yourself, in disgust, in pity, as you struggle to keep breathing. You are going to die. You’re not, obviously, you’re fine, but it’s hard to keep that fact in mind right now, considering the way your heart is trying to jailbreak your chest. You’re twisted up in the most pitiful non-option response to fight-or-flight, and why? 

You tried to leave the apartment. 

Except it wasn’t just that. It’s never just that. It’s that you looked in the kitchen sink and saw how many dishes you had to do today, you turned on the news for all of ten minutes and saw that the world was burning, you looked at yourself in the mirror and you realized the hickies on your neck are fading, you turned your face to the side to better see the splotched green-yellow and you remembered you share the shape of your nose with someone else you’d rather not, you dug through your pile of unfolded clean clothes and drug up the college hoodie worn through at the sleeves that one of your boyfriends used to wear constantly and when you held it up to the florescent light you remembered with sickening clarity the terrified hurt on his face the last time you saw him wearing it, you turned for the front door and reached for the handle and pictured the cold dark bleakness of the pre-sunrise early-a.m. city and the bodies on the subway that would treat you as invisible and the blind corners and shadowed spaces that would threaten you with every face they hid and way the train car’s doors would close and trap you and there would be no space no room to run to breathe and then suddenly you were just here on the floor, and there was a slat of weak grey dawn in your lap. 

It feels like divine punishment. Assholes get what assholes deserve. A bolt from Zeus. Or was it Hera? Whichever one drove Hercules off the deep end. You weren’t paying attention in sophomore English that day. You were too busy thinking about how to run away from home before your dad found out you flunked the algebra exam. You didn’t succeed. You pointedly tell yourself not to remember what happened next. 

Breathing isn’t easy, but you keep doing it, somehow. You wish someone were here. No one is here. Your roommates are both off at work. You’re supposed to be at work too, but obviously you’re a fucking wreck who can’t get off the floor. Your boyfriends won’t be coming by to save you again either. Ex-boyfriends. Something jars in your gut every time you think that, and you really must be a psycho now because you laugh, just a little, just a huffing sort of shudder of air. Fucking irony right here. Why do you need them right now? Because you’re a nervous dysfunctional wreck. Why did that relationship end? Because you’re a nervous dysfunctional wreck. Stressed, strained, scared, constantly jumpy, constantly pulling shit like this—at work—on dates—fucking everywhere, let’s not forget the time you fucking , _hid in a bathroom at Red Lobster for twenty minutes_ because you were a paranoid piece of crap who just couldn’t deal with the people around you.

But there’s no people here now.

And you can’t deal with that either.

And you can’t deal with anything really.

It strikes you for the first time, in what is probably referred to in the scientific literature as A Way Too Fucking Long Time, that maybe you need help.

You don’t deserve it, but you do need it. 

You pick up your phone, and dial the number of your roommate-cum-life partner-cum-etc. etc. etc., and pray that she answers. 

She picks up on the third ring, voice already pricked into funny angles with concern. She’s already expecting this. You don’t tell her much. You can’t. There’s a long way between your consciousness floating somewhere in the thick clouds of the stratosphere and the reality of your dry-lipped raw-throated body and any words you managed to dig up are ripped apart into fragmented syllables in the panting gusts of wind you wheeze to and from a tight chest. You’re not sure what you end up saying—not like it matters, your voice sounds like shit right now—but it’s unnecessary, she’s already leaving her desk. She’s on her way to the ladies’ room where she can lock herself in a stall and give this conversation a modicum of privacy. You try to tell her you’re sorry. You’ve done this before, too many times to even count. Of course you have, you’re such a piece of shit all you ever do is keep piling your goddamn mess onto other people when they don’t deserve it other people don’t deserve it you don’t—she’s shushing you now, talking over you. You try to tell her you’re sorry, but it’s not like she would listen if you succeeded. She’s done this before too. She knows what a fucking pitiful excuse for an adult you are, and she must be a fucking saint or some shit because every time, every time without fail, she gives you what you need. 

She keeps talking as she enters the restroom, tells you what she’s doing as she checks for feet under the three stall doors, locks herself in one of them with a faint scrap and click of a cheap latch, and settles herself in on the toilet tank, feet braced on the seat. You know what her constant chatter is trying to do for you, and it would succeed, if gravity was working and you were still on the floor. You’re not. Your severed parts are all floating off in various directions, arms, legs, disconnected, your guts sprawl along the ceiling, your head spins and your stomach turns at the sight of it all. Her words are thread and needles and the little plastic weights that keep party balloons from drifting off. She asks questions you can’t verbally answer. What do you see? Your own hands, shaking like they’re phasing into another fucking dimension. What do you hear? Your own stuttering breath at the end of a very long hallway. What do you feel? That one of you needs to vacuum the carpet soon. What do you smell? The stagnant air of home. What do you taste? Blood, from where you bit down on your lips and tongue trying not to scream.

With each word, each sense remembered, you are tugged back in, patchwork-style, and then suddenly you resemble a person again, curled upon the floor, and your breath comes in easing pants as the wires around your chest are unwound. You still see yourself from the ceiling because your body’s too treacherous to inhabit right now, and you still look like the grossest thing ever, but, it’s an improvement. You watch yourself sit up, slowly, still reeling from the shock of being torn apart. The gaps in your body have been filled with void and ice, but your limbs all listen when you speak. Small victories. 

Your roommate is still there on the other end of the line. She’s breathing steadily, and she tells you to try and match her, and her voice sounds like the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life. You thank her hoarsely, and there’s a faint not-laugh at the other end of the line as she shrugs it off and you can imagine, perfectly, what she must look like right now, the concerned turn of her lips, the way she presses the phone up to her ear with the crook of her shoulder while her hands tuck themselves into the opposite sleeves of her dry-clean-only jacket. Her name is Rosie-Joy, and her hair is soft sleek black and tucked back behind one ear, and her eyes are the color of M&Ms with the shells chipped off and dipped pastel with concern. Except, she’s really RJ, and her natural tone of voice is a scream and her hands are covered in calluses from pole dance competitions and she has the sophomoric sense of humor of a shitpost blog. You can tell it’s taking a concentrated effort on her part to keep her tone gentle as she prompts, “You alright there, Twinkie?”

You are not a Twinkie. You’re like the least Twinkie thing you can think of. You’re a six foot four ginger who looks like he’s been sunbathing under a colander and you can bench press either of your two boyfriends (ex-boyfriends). It’s a shitty nickname and you’ve never found the motivation in your heart to give a damn. You tell her yes. Your voice sounds like a dried-up rubber band about to pop.

“You been like this since we left?” She asks. You shrug, not that she can see, and ask the time. She tells you and holy shit, holy shit you are late for work. Are they going to fire you for this? They’re totally going to fire you for this. This isn’t the first time you’ve been a no-show and they’ve given you warning after warning and holy shit you are doomed. How the fuck do you even freak out for that long? Panic attacks aren’t supposed to last more than, like, ten minutes. You know that. You remember the first time this happened and your boyfriends (ex-boyfriends) were running up your data trying to google what the fuck to do with you. You remember they mentioned the ten minute thing, when it was all over and you lay like a wrung dishrag in their arms, as if that would help. 

“You want me to call your boss and tell her you’re sick?” Her voice is delicate, and cautious, and prodding, like you were an explosive and she had to snip just the right wire or you’d self-destruct. That metaphor is actually pretty close to the truth and holy shit do you hate it you hate this you’re explosive destructive toxic you shouldn’t be here she shouldn’t have to deal with this—

“Hey, hey, shh, Twinkie, babydoll, don’t, don’t go off on me again…” 

You wish she were here. Your body aches for contact and you _want_ her to be here, with her arms around you like garden shears nipping away the cancerous bud of fear before it spreads again, with her rough hands in your hair stroking down the cowlicks and reminding you where your body is. But she’s not here, just her voice, and her voice does work in a pinch. You breathe together, matching inhale for exhale, until you have enough control over your stuttering lungs and scratched vocal cords to mumble another apology.

“Jesus H. Christ, Twinkie, stop it already. I told you, it’s fine. It’s really, really fine. You’re fine. Alright?”

Her voice is sharper now, a bluntness you’re familiar with. It scared you at first, the way every comment she pointed your way seemed particularly acidic. You thought she was angry, at everything, at you in particular, because that’s what you were used to and shit you were like not even 18 and fresh out of the house for the first time and you hadn’t yet learned to turn off the constant red alert in your brain. You kept your mouth wired shut and your step light around her, because you knew that’s how you could stay safe, but once she realized what she was putting you through—and that was a hell of a mutual guilt trip right there—she instantly backed off. You could see the loving struggle every time she spoke to you to monitor her natural tone and pitch and take all of your awkward-as-fuck triggers into account. So in response you struggled to not be quite so handle-with-care and to take her impersonal abrasion in stride. Eventually after enough mutual struggling you reached this sort of equilibrium where she could scream without you breaking and you could break without her screaming, and now here you were, connected by love and AT&T. 

“You should get some water or something,” she directs. “And, like, maybe get yourself onto the couch or something. You’re still on the floor, aren’t you? Get off the floor already, that’s not sanitary.” 

You watch yourself sit uncooperatively on the carpet, and you can hear her static-laden sigh over the phone, like she knows full well you’re not going to take care of yourself, like that fact’s already printed in the books and it’s outside the budget to put a copy editor to fix it. 

“Do you… like, want to talk?” she prompts after a while. You hate yourself for how strained her voice sounds, the catch of frustration, of tears that want to prick in her eyes but that she’s not even going to acknowledge in any way, shape, or form because she’s not going to be the one who craps out on you. “Like, uh… vent a little or something. What happened this time?”

This time. Fuck, you’re the worst, and you say so by way of explanation.

“That’s not a reason and you damn well know it.” 

Yeah, you damn well know it, but honesty isn’t really what you’re known for. 

“Is… is it the breakup? Is it something with why your boyfriends dumped you?”

Harsh much? 

“Ugh, fuck, sorry, I’m sorry… but, like, is it? Talk to me, babydoll, please, you’re kind of freaking me out…”

It’s not. Of course it’s not. They didn’t dump you. Why would they? They were the kindest, most supportive, most… just, no words. They were fucking saints on Earth, like angels, like RJ, who looked at you all toxic and aching and said, this is a person I can love. No, you were the one who left. You had to. It was for the best. You could see the stress lines that started to crease their foreheads whenever they took you out, their anxious glances and stilted talk like you were tissue paper they were porting through a storm. You could see the mounting frustration and hurt that grew and grew in their eyes every time you lied, because of course you lied, you’re a cagey asshole and you never learned how not to. You had to leave. It was for their own safety, a choice made after the more level-headed of the two finally broke down and admitted with the shimmer of tears in his eyes that your constant _everything_ was wearing him threadbare, a choice made after the other of the pair who was just so innocent so optimistic laid his hand all gentle on your shoulder and tried to coax you out when you’d gone into your shell because the world was just too much and you just you just reacted and you screamed at him not to fucking touch you and shoved him away like actually _shoved_ and—

God. _God_. You fucking _monster_. 

Incidentally, you tried to break up with RJ too after all of that, because there’s no way in hell she should be subjected to your existence either, but given the current situation it’s safe to say that went over like a left-wing bill in a right-wing Congress. 

You’re exhausted by the explanation and you haven’t even started, but her silence is expectant and you think her voice is going to rise if you give a crap answer again so you admit, yes, it’s something with the breakup, and maybe you’ll tell her tonight, when her arms can be there to hold you together when you do your inevitable china-in-a-bull-shop impersonation. 

She breathes in a way you think sounds a bit like a sigh that got the air drained out of its tires halfway through, but she takes it. She gives a quiet “alright,” and then you just hold the line together for a while. A long while, you think, but you don’t mind a bit. You’re both breathing metronome with each other and while you still don’t feel like it’s you who’s operating your lungs right now it helps. 

Finally she says, in a tone brittle with something like regret but not quite, “I… need to get going. I’ve got a meeting in ten. Are… are you gonna hold up over there?”

You tell her yeah, sure, of course. You honestly don’t know for sure, and you know she can sense that. 

“It’s not like a long meeting. Like, I should be out in half an hour. You can call me if you still need me.” You won’t call. You’re not going to disturb her again like this. “Sweetheart, I promise you, it’s no trouble, just give me a ring, whatever you need. Here, look, I’ll drop a line to your boss and everything. Want me to come home for lunch? I can come home for lunch.” Lunch is barely on your register right now. “Just… call me please. If you need, like, anything else, I’m serious, just in half an hour, okay? I’m…” There’s a hitch to her voice, and it kills you a little inside. “I’m… I’m sorry I can’t do more. Um, bye for now.”

The line doesn’t go dead until you say goodbye back, and then silence settles down like ashes. 

The slant of sunlight in your lap has drifted upwards, and lays against your belly. You watch your fingers sift through it, stirring up the dust motes caught in its floodlight stare, and try to pretend they’re not still shaking. Isn’t this supposed to be over by now? Panic attacks last ten minutes. Ten minutes, and then you’re supposed to be back in your body, and you’re supposed to be okay again, and your hands aren’t supposed to be shaking why are they still shaking why can’t you breathe properly still why—

You know why, of course. This is what rock bottom looks like, the crunch of the camel’s back breaking under the final straw. You let yourself wallow in your own slop for years, and now, this, this chilly Tuesday morning spent chained to the floor watching yourself not even struggle to stand, this is the point at which you can no longer bear it. 

There’s an inkling in the back of your mind, of what you need to do, what you know full well you need to do to break out. Two inklings really, but the second one is fucking terrifying and you don’t really want to go that far. The first one is scary too, but a little less so, and there’s this strange sense of inevitability to it, like you knew this was what you needed to do since the night you screamed at and hurt someone you loved and realized that you were no longer the person you said you were going to be. All of this, even the panic, it’s just putting off the inevitable.

So with a deep breath, to steel what little you have to steel, you do it.

Your father picks up the phone after five rings, and greets you with a voice that makes your mind flash to a fuckton of things you won’t think about. “Hello?”

You say hello back.

He seems a little startled to hear you. Can’t blame him there; not like you two talk much. As much as you both try to keep your lives separate—you think he’s too disappointed in you to bother, and you’d just as soon never so much as mention him again—you don’t actually live all that far apart now and anyways, there’s always something, some nameless uncomfortable something, that keeps the flimsiest hint of contact alive. You couldn’t explain it if you tried, and you’ve tried a lot.

You try to make awkward small talk, about work, about weather. It goes absolutely nowhere. 

“Seeing any girls?” Of course he asks that. You have no idea why your love life is important but he always asks, and then if you say yes then the subject stays on that for like twenty minutes that drag on painfully awkward and way too long. You say no just to keep it all civil. 

And then, inevitably, with the disappointment that still rips you up even though you know you’re supposed to be past this. “So you’re still doing that… gay thing then?”

You really, really want to explain, in very pointed language that he’s never listened to once since you got the courage to start using it, that despite the whole gay-rainbow-glitter triad it’s actually a bi thing, or maybe a pan thing, you don’t know, this stuff is hard, but you feel like a fucking train wreck and so you just kind of mumble something and pray the subject gets dropped. 

“So what do you need?” Thank God.

You have an excuse and it’s lame but you use it. Something something blah blah science project from second grade you know he doesn’t have. You say it’s in your room and you want it for some reason. You don’t say what reason, because any reason you would give is stupid, because this excuse is stupid, but you’re not in a state to think of a better one. He just kinda goes with it and you’re grateful. 

That project came to mind because you remember it well. Not what it was about, obviously, just that somewhere along the line you tipped a whole bottle of Elmer’s glue onto the rug. You remember you panicked. You stretched to the limits of your very finite second grade knowledge and abilities to clean it up before your father got home from work, and saw what you’d done to upset him, and of course you just made it worse because you’re like eight and who the fuck knows how to fix something when they’re eight. And so he got home. And so he saw what you’d done. And so you feel a little sick knowing what came next.

You swallow it back, because there’s a point to it this time damn it, and you ask him, over the little sounds of closet doors being opened and boxes shuffled halfheartedly, if he remembers that incident. 

He says he doesn’t. 

You remind him again, and something clicks and he laughs a little. The fucker laughs. And there’s a tension to it, like he knows you’re getting at something sticky and that there’s something here to regret and stiffen over but he still laughs, and then he says what he remembers in a quick brush-aside style like when you explain that stain on the rug you’d rather not remember to a curious neighbor stopping by for a drink and you skip over the gory bits and keep it cocktail-friendly and seriously, seriously? You would punch his face in if you were there. You wouldn’t. You’re still a wuss when it comes to him. But the smell of Elmer’s still makes you cringe a little and the fucker has the gall to laugh about it, like there’s no remorse, no regret, no moment even now even years later when he looks in the mirror and realizes what a monster he’s become. 

All of that flashes through your head at once, and then suddenly you’re calm. You have what you need now, you know what you needed to know, and everything settles down within you in a way that feels surprisingly anticlimactic.

There’s a resolution to go through, of course. As much as you want to just hang up, you don’t, so you wait for him to tell you he can’t find the MacGuffin in question and make another pass or two at obligatory small talk before you say your goodbyes and tap the end call button.

For long moments you lean back against the wall, and just _breathe_ , and marvel at how it feels for the air to actually enter _your_ lungs, instead of the lungs of some far-off stranger. You push yourself to your feet, and your legs are little Bambi-ish after all that but you’re steady again in a step or two. You flick through your recent calls as you head into the bedroom, and prop the phone up with your shoulder to leave both hands free as you open up the door.

She picks up so quickly that the first ring is cut off neatly in half, and her voice is already wound tight with fresh concern. “Twinkie?”

“Hey RJ.”

“Shit, okay, good…” She laughs in that slightly hysterical way only relief can bring, and it makes you crack a little smile too. “Sorry, sorry, I thought… You sound a lot better. You feeling better?”

“More or less.” You tell her honestly. “Did you end up calling my boss, or should I?”

“No, no, I did that, you’re good. You have food poisoning though, so don’t go in until tomorrow and maybe look kinda nauseous.”

“Noted.” Since a paycheck is apparently off the table today, you pick up your gym bag from the floor and set it on your messy bedspread. As you speak, you part the two halves of the zippered maw, and shove in your good running shoes, your tee-shirt, your shorts. “So, I just wanted to ask, that lunch offer still good? We could grab Panera or something…”

“You sure?” You can hear the crease of a frown line in her tone. “Sweetie, you don’t have to come out if you can’t manage it, I can come over there, it’s fine.”

“No, no, like for real. I really want their soup right now. And I’m gonna be down there anyway. I’m going to the gym for a while.”

“Gonna bench press those feelings away?”

“More like cardio, but yeah, something like that.”

“Sounds good.” You can tell she’s kind of distrustful of this recovery—to be entirely honest you are too—but before she has a chance to start pressing, you say, “There’s something I wanna talk about too, while we’re there.” 

“Yeah, sure thing, what?”

“I…” You swallow down something, pride maybe, and take a breath. You started this, now show some follow-through… “I, okay, um, I think… maybe I should, I dunno…” 

You hesitate. These words feel weird on your tongue. You’ve never tried this before. “Uh, could you, like, maybe… help me google a good therapist?”

There’s a long pause on her end, long enough that you pull the phone away from your ear and check that one of you hasn’t hung up. “Shit, Twinkie… did the bodysnatchers come in the last half hour or something?”

“Fuck off, it’s a good idea.”

“I know it is. That’s why I’ve recommended it, like, eighty gazillion times.” She laughs a little, that hysterical relieved laugh again, and you’re smiling even wider because now that it’s all said and settled... something does feel better. Something feels almost right. “But, uh, yeah, sure, of course. Of course I’ll help you. You wanna start looking over lunch?”

“That’s the plan. Though, come to think of it, can you even find therapists via Google? Like is that how you’re supposed to do it?”

“Shit, you’re asking me? I don’t see why not. By the way, do you mind filling me in on what the hell all happened to you this morning? Like, please? You worry me…”

You really don’t want to but, “Yeah, sure.”

You agree on a time for all this, and exchange goodbyes and love-yous, and let her end the call while you tuck your phone back in your pocket and sling your gym bag over your shoulder. You take a moment to refill your water bottle and verify your keys haven’t wandered off to Narnia.

And you only flinch a little when you open up the front door, and cross the threshold, and remember to lock up behind you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Expect the next update on the 13th of October!


	2. Squash Soup for the Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix grabs some lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this was a day later than expected! I recently started a new job, and with my new schedule I admittedly forgot to set up the automatic update.

You made a slight miscalculation in your mental image from earlier. RJ, as it turns out, is not wearing a dry-clean-only jacket with sleeves she can tuck her hands into. Instead she is wearing a sweater today, a kind of dusty red-wine shade, over nice black pants, with gold bead drop earrings that pull the whole thing together into something approximating business casual. And instead of hanging sleek down her back, her hair is pulled into of those little scoop-clips you once tried to operate on her behalf and failed miserably at. Aside from the fashion, though, the images that guided you through your breakdown from earlier line up pretty well with reality: same lips, same silhouette of her face framed against the cream wall behind her, same dark eyes that hold, as they flick up and find yours, the same concern.

She smiles though, a flitty sort of expression, and gives you a little wave like you’re not already beelining to her table. You slide into the booth across from her, long legs splaying and folding under the table until they fit, and she greets you, “Hey Twinkie.”

“Hey RJ.”

“How are you doing?”

“Better.” You say, and you mean it. God do you mean it. Endorphins are holy and gyms are magical creations sent from a heaven you don’t actually believe in, and you’ve sweated and washed and you feel a little reborn. “A lot better.”

RJ’s smile widens at that and she reaches forward, slips her hand over yours. Her lips are very red, and the color smudges up just a little bit on the cupid’s bow where she must have rubbed it idly earlier. She leans down to take a sip of her water, and there’s a little ring of color around the top of the straw as well. You know full well that color’s going to be rubbed off almost entirely by the time she returns home, and what’s left is going to be kissed away by her fiancé well before you can get your arms around her. As it should be. “That’s good. That’s really good.”

There’s a small silence. It’s awkward, but not usual, and you can’t blame her for it. She’s good at this, but let’s be honest, you wouldn’t know how to talk to you post panic either. After a minute she clears her throat, and says, “So, I called your boss.”

“What did she say?”

RJ sighs, and you know instantly you are screwed. “That, uh, you’re on thin ice. Those were her exact words. And they were like, really… I dunno, you know how her voice gets all, like, pinched sometimes?”

She used the pinched voice. Red alert, all stations go, we have pinched voice, oh shit you are so screwed. It sends a cold chill through you, deep and unpleasant as an ice cube swallowed unexpectedly with a swig of water, to know just how deep in you are, and how dire your situation has suddenly become.

You swallow, and take a sip of your tea, as if that could chase it away. It doesn’t, but the familiar flavor of English Breakfast Blend does something really good for your soul anyways. “Not to, like… completely ignore small talk, but we _really_ need to find a therapist.”

She nods and gives a little “Right, right,” unzips her bag at her side and plucks out her phone, encased in a floral print that looks vaguely like your nana’s living room wallpaper. You pull out yours, much the same, sans the case. She leans forward into your space, one hand fisted and propping up her chin and face bend down all conspiratorial-like as you lay your phone down on the table in front of you. Her eyes glance up, meet yours, and you find yourself aching for that little glimmer they usually get when she’s on her phone, about to turn it around to you, that glimpse of, _hold onto your hat Twinkie imma show you the good shit_. “So…. How do we do this?”

“Fuck if I know.”

So, you do what seems obvious. You google how to find a therapist, while she checks Yelp.

It’s stupid, you both know. By the time her food arrives, a scant five minutes, she’s already told you that all she’s getting are massage people. You’re actually getting some pretty nice stuff, but you can’t do much with it. Psychiatry, psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral-mumbo-jumbo, words you don’t understand in the slightest. It’s like going to a restaurant with fifty things on the menu and they’re all some variant of burger but they’re all in Swedish or something and the cashier’s looking up at you with a may-I take-your order grin and shit, you never signed up for this. You thought therapy was the Freud thing where you lay on a couch with a stupid rolly end and then someone is a mustache tells you it’s all about your mom or your dad or dicks or all of the above. Or like the free school councilor RJ pressured you into seeing in sophomore year when you got too wrapped up in your own head kind of like you are now, and everything was fine for three meetings and then she started getting all your-problems-are-caused-by-your-sinful-gay-open-relationships-come-to-Jesus-my-child and you noped out of there real fast. Or, well, not exactly like either of those you guess, but something cohesive at least, something where you could just pick whoever nearby took your insurance nothing else to decide and stop in for a bit until the crazy ran its course. Shit, does your insurance even cover this? Can you afford to get help? You never thought of that, and your heart picks up a drumroll at the thought that now here once you’d finally admitted defeat and given into everyone’s suggestions that you aren’t strong enough to get through this on your own you won’t actually be able to do anything, and oh shit oh shit can you even afford Panera right now? Panera is! Freaking! Expensive! Oh my god do you guys have enough money of this? Did your stupid craving for soup just throw your family budget in the toilet? Did you even lock the door on the way out?

There’s pressure on your free hand, familiar and warm, and then RJ’s fingers are slipping under yours, pushing up to raise both your palms. Your own fingers splay, and hers twine, and they settle like that, interlocked like they were meant to be that way. Your heartrate softens. God you love her. “You good there Twinkie? Finding much?”

“A bit.” You pull up your texts, link the articles to her so that she can see them on her own phone. You watch her phone screen, topsy-turvy from your perspective, as she taps to the new messages. “I think this might take a little bit more than a lunch hour.”

“No shit Sherlock.” With a sigh, she sets her phone aside, facedown on the tabletop, and rubs her fingers against her temple like she’s nursing a hangover. “You mind if we get Taylor in on this?”

“Of course not.” Taylor was her fiancé, recently so, and a great man. You both have a guy’s night every other week, just the two of you, to keep your respective prongs of the fucked-up V you inhabited as close and companionable as possible. “You think he can help?”

“His stepmom is a therapist.” She says, which is something you actually didn’t know, and _would have appreciated knowing going into this thanks_. “So, yeah, I think that’ll help? Anyways it’ll probably be easier to parse all this stuff when we’re at home and we have tabs and like an actual proper screen to look on…”

You nod, and her hand slips from yours as she rises up. “Watch my food, I’m gonna go pee.”

You watch her food. Her sandwich and chip bag rest inert on her plate, doing nothing of interest. Your own soup arrives while she’s gone, tucked away in a bread bowl, with a hunk of extra bread hanging out on the side ready to be slathered in butter and a decent-looking gala apple for later. Or now. You tell yourself it’s for later but let’s be honest you’re fucking starved you’re eating that thing seeds and all. You’re already halfway through it when RJ returns and scooches herself into her seat again. She picks up her sandwich and actually toasts you with it, kind of, before she sinks her teeth into it. Her fingernails are half-polished, chipped at the ends and grown out at the base so that only a fractured section of holographic green remains in the middle of each.

“So, what happened earlier?” She asks as soon as she’s swallowed down her bite, which throws you for a loop. You were really hoping she’d forgotten.

“What?”

“You know.” She’s not looking at you, and her voice is clipped a little, and you know it’s because she’s as tense about asking this as you are about answering, but knowing doesn’t help in the least. “The part where you lost your shit again this morning.”

You wince. “Harsh much?”

She winces back and mutters an apology. You do too, just for making her wince.

Uncomfortable silence settles between the two of you, and you do nothing to brush it away. There’s a little jostling in the back of your mind where all the thoughts are shoving each other around like black Friday shoppers trying to push their way to push their way to the front of the store five minutes before opening because there’s an awesome sale on things-you-don’t-want-to-talk-about plus a free six-pack of -foot-in-mouth with every purchase, only $19.99 for the first 20 thoughts that manage to make their out into the open before your anxiety renders you nonverbal. You make yourself focus on the soup instead to keep them all properly behind the barricade of underpaid employees. It’s that fall-only squash-pumpkin thing, still a little too hot even though you blow on every bite.

“So?”

Her words catch you with a mouthful of soup and your request for clarification is just a throat noise. “Are you going to talk to me?”

Welp, shit, ignoring it didn’t work. Nope, you are not going to talk to her, if you have any sort of control over that. The thought of trying to say that aloud kind of does something really scary to your heartrate, though, so instead you just sort of mumble that there’s not really anything new to say, just the usual, brush it off.

“That’s bullshit, babydoll.” There’s force and aggression in her tone, no doubt, but it’s not real anger. You’ve known her long enough that you can tell the difference, and also she’s probably keeping herself under more emotional control than she would otherwise because wow you’re so fucking delicate just flip out at the smallest fucking thing—Focus focus focus don’t go there again.

You’re just… bad at this, honestly. Bad at processing everything. Bad at getting your mind to shut the hell up.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know that.” Her words clip off your last syllable, impatient, forceful. Not anger. Exhaustion. She still has half a sandwich in her hands dripping sauce of some kind you can’t remember onto the napkin on her lap and she doesn’t even seem to care if it misses and lands on her nice slacks and her eyes are so, so tired. She tries again, voice softer. “Can you just like… talk about what’s stressing you out this time? Please? You’re having a really bad day, and like you worry me when you go off the rails like this. I want to help.”

Help? The word’s so out of your range of thought right now that it might as well be foreign on your tongue. Vocabulary from eighth grade language classes slipping right over your head because your brain is going a million miles a minute off on planet Neptune. _Donde esta la help? Je ne sais fucking pas, Fraulin, something something in Latin because that’s what else your school offered and you need to complete the joke somehow._ She’s done enough. She’s done as much as she possibly can.

“Well, obviously, I’m still not doing enough.”

But she is, she is, doesn’t she see? She can’t help. She knows what happened, she knows there’s no real cause. It’s not like the breakup was a one-off thing that marred your formerly perfect life. This shit runs deeper than that. It’s not an infection that can be solved with the right pills and TLC. It’s not a virus that runs its course. It’s a chronic autoimmune disease, and every new episode is just a manifestation of the same old symptoms. You know all too well by now that no amount of talking is going to save you from it. She can’t help. Nothing can ever help. And your feelings are going to stay locked up inside if you, where they belong, where they won’t cause any more damage than they already do.

RJ is silent for a long moment, eyes downcast, hand resolute on yours. The weight of her expression is crushing. Her lack of voice rings so loud in your ears that you want to scream. You’re in the middle of Panera at 12-and-change in the afternoon on a Tuesday in September and you’re not having another freak out, you aren’t, you aren’t really, you’re just tired. You’re just so tired. Your breakdown earlier sapped all your strength. The workout was a reprieve, but it just it takes so much energy to keep your brain on a single track. It takes so much conscious effort sometimes to keep yourself in your own body. The pressure of her hope and her fear and the way she’s looking at your now make your shoulders sag, backbone break, body crumple like a dry leaf. Keeping it all up, keeping it all together, is unbearable.

You let go on your hold on yourself, so subtle that she doesn’t even seem to realize you’re peacing out at all.

“I don’t think you actually believe that.”

Her words are soft, but they catch you off guard just a bit. You find yourself raising your eyebrows in curiosity. She looks up, catching the silent question, and goes on, “Dude, you just said you’re going to get therapy. We just spent ten minutes researching it and now we’re going to have a big family talk about it at home, and like…” She brushes a loose wisp of hair back with her other hand, fidgety, but she doesn’t let go of you once. Her grip is tight, like a thunder vest for your palm. “I don’t think you’d be putting in that effort if you didn’t think you had some hope, of some kind at least?”

That’s, huh. You hadn’t thought of it that way, but there’s a definite point to that.

Not to get you wrong or anything, it’s not hope you feel, not really, you know better. But at this point you’re not even treading water like you used to, you’re actively drowning in a way you haven’t been for years. There are rocks in your shoes and your kicking and clawing for the surface isn’t a drive for success as much as it’s a drive to survive.

But, you guess, once you’re as close to the bottom as you are, any attempt to push yourself up counts as hope.

Your throat burns suddenly at that, and you have to remind yourself quickly that no, no actually you don’t feel hope, you’re not that dumb, you don’t play that game of risk.

“…. Thanks.”

“For what?” She asks. Her red mouth turns up at one corner, pushing up a little half-crescent fold into her cheek.

You give a sort of shrug, and squeeze her hand. “Just, like… everything? I love you.”

“I love you too.”

You wish the moment could last longer than it did. Your emotions are all over the place—no fucking shit you’ve been a wreck since you got up—RJ is right this is a bad day this is a really fucking bad day and crap its only halfway over—and suddenly all you want to do is crawl into her lap for a good hour or five. That’s no happening. Her hand doesn’t leave yours, but her other one picks up the rest of her sandwich, and you’re left to spoon soup in your mouth as best you can with your non-dominant hand, which isn’t very well at all, but it makes her laugh and that’s worth it.

“Whatcha think you’re going to do the rest of the day?” Her tone of voice suggests, _Please for the love of fuck Twinkie do something._

“Cleaning, I guess.” That’s your fallback on bad days, with mixed results. At least if it goes well it justifies your existence and laziness. “Do we need anything? I can stop at the store on the way back.”

A little line of concern creases between under-tweezed eyebrows. “Are you up to it?”

Maybe. Possibly. “Yeah, totally.”

“Maybe pick up some more cheese?” She says, but it’s in that cautious way that suggests that she already assumes you won’t be making the trip. Rude. You have like a 40% chance of making it in and out successfully, have a little faith. “Also, blackberries, if we can, I like seriously crave blackberries. And like everything else that’s on the list?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Can do.” The blackberries will be your driving force in this endeavor. “How much time do you have before work?”

RJ leaves your hand bereft to poke at her phone, and groans at the time that pops up. “Oh, fuck, like fifteen minutes. I’ve gotta get going.”

You feel less disappointed, and more vaguely horrified at the idea of being left behind all of a sudden when you’re still all raw and fucked up. RJ gives your hand one more sympathetic squeeze as she rises. You do as well, and pull her plate over. “Here, I got this, you go sprint.”

“Thanks, babydoll. I’ll see you.”

You’re expecting that to be it, but without warning, she catches your shoulders with one arm as you straighten up and kisses you, quick and short and impossibly soft.

That’s not something you two do often.

That’s… honestly maybe the third time you two have ever kissed her like this, in public, casually, declaratively. This isn’t part of your relationship. It’s enough of a surprise that you forget to kiss back, though she doesn’t look hurt as she lowers herself down from the balls of her feet. Her forehead still holds that concerned crease, and you find yourself brushing your fingers over it, as if touch alone could smooth away the worries it held there. “Take care of yourself, kay, Twinkie?”

You make sure to buy two cartons of the juiciest looking blackberries on your way home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you liked this story, good news: updates are still coming on the 13th of every month!
> 
> If you prefer, you can track this story on Tumblr at https://felixstory.tumblr.com/ (though we're having some technical difficulties with formatting it right now).
> 
> If you'd like to support this story, I have a Patreon for it over at https://www.patreon.com/kittygee


	3. Something Like a Fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So guess what-- it's Taylor! I love this doof.

Taylor doesn’t look surprised to see you scrubbing away at the kitchen counter, reeking of harsh chemical lemon, when he walks through the door at 4:30 sharp. He just greets you kindly, gives you one of those gruff one-armed back-slapping hugs you see guys do at the gym shirtless all abs just-to-greet-a-bro-no-homo-dude-no-homo, and asks what you want for dinner. He thanks you for doing the dishes. He neglects to criticize you for forgetting to vacuum even through you checked the chore chart that’s totally your job right now, it’s just the vacuum is currently engaged in a clandestine affair with an extension cord in the hall closet under a tangled orgy of winter coats birthing forth an endless supply of mismatched gloves that none of you can remember buying and overseen by the grim countenance of the ironing board and you just you didn’t want to deal with that hot mess right now, the PDA with RJ earlier only served to kick your brain into a higher notch of overthinking than it already had been and that new stress settled itself on the old from this afternoon this morning last night like an incredibly depressing layer cake glued together with really shitty discount frosting, the kind that makes your mouth and stomach and blood sugar hurt just looking at, and you ended up flopping on the couch and cycling through vine compilations like a holding pattern until you found enough ground and space and energy to make a stab at productivity again. He tells you your new shirt is nice.

“RJ told you I had a bad day, didn’t she?”

Taylor’s smile is sheepish, but his shrug suggests a complete lack of shame. You can barely see both, because he’s opened up the freezer and is leaning in rummaging around for things. His voice has a natural sympathy to it, the kind of tone little children want reading their bedtime story to them, and his blue eyes when they flick over to find yours betray a gentleness the likes of which you’ve never see in another man before. It’s kind of odd because Taylor is a gigantic terrifying leather-clad biker a good head taller than you with a scary black beard and full sleeve tattoos sprawling up and down both meaty arms. He’s studying to be an interior architect and designer. People would probably laugh at that if the sheer sight of him didn’t make them piss their pants first. “She told me you had another anxiety attack, and that you’re looking into therapy. Which, I think that’s very strong of you.”

He closes the freezer with a little nudge of his elbow and looks you square and steady in the eye, smile almost proud in a way you feel is entirely undeserved. In each hand is a frozen pack of spaghetti, two months old at minimum. And not like a Stouffer’s pack, like homemade carby goodness, packed in plate-sized portions in freezer bags. You’re all doing this poly family thing on a shoestring budget, but between your grocery store discount and RJ couponing like an old lady and Taylor leaning to cook in bulk and freeze it, most of your food is actually homemade and pretty tasty. Except right now the freezer packs are running low. Taylor hasn’t had time to make more things. You make a mental note to like throw a bunch of chicken breasts in the oven or something just to take some of the weight from his shoulders, and it settles down on yours instead, iron-heavy sprinkles atop your layer cake of suffering. 

“Did she tell you everything that happened today?” You ask as you take the freezer pack from his hands. You try to keep it all casual-like but it’s so obviously touched with more than your baseline of anxiety that he looks back over his shoulder at you curiously as he fetches down two freshly clean plates.

“I think so?” He shrugs as he passes one over to you. “She told me that you’re hoping to ask me for some advice about finding a therapist. Which I’m happy to do, by the way. Isn’t it about time you asked about my day?” The last words have a small knowing chuckle tacked onto them, like a nontactile pat on the shoulder, a comfort, _come on Felix calm down, let it drop, the day’s almost over._

Except, except you can’t, your gut is chewing itself to bits inside. It just hit you that Taylor might not know about the kiss, and now that the thought is there it sticks like a strip of stray tape on your fingers, no way to shake it, transferring from finger to finger and thought to thought as you struggle to work around it. 

You’re so caught in your head you miss his next words, and he has to repeat himself, eyes softening in a way you’re all too familiar with. “Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

Yeah. Yeah, of course you are, you promise. 

It’s just a bad day. 

He’s not like RJ, thankfully. If you don’t want to talk about something—and let’s be real here, you don’t want to talk about literally any of the things going on in your head right now—then he lets it drop without another word. He just gives a quiet nod as you slip past him to slide your pasta into the microwave, and waits for you to suggest a subject change. You’re silently grateful for that respect, and you do what little you can to show it by turning the conversation the way he wants it. “How was your day?”

The effect is immediate and kind of endearing. His face lights up like an eight-year-old asked to explain his Pokémon team. “Oh, it was excellent! Here, so you know I left at 4:30, and the city is usually fairly quiet but today there was someone on the subway playing a harmonica! And then…”

Taylor is a rambler when you get him happy, which is something you try to do at least once a day at minimum. You let him describe his day in glorious needless detail as you pop open the microwave before it’s done screaming at you. He tells you that he listened to the with the man with the harmonica all the way down to the edge of town, where he works part time at a 24-hour gas station just off the freeway. You sprinkle your dish with desiccated parmesan as he shifts past to heat up his own plate, and he waxes poetic about a child in a baby pouch who smiled at him, and a girl in an ethereal white satin dress who stopped for Doritos. You pour drinks for the both of you—plastic cup of chablis from a jug the size of your head for you, craft beer with a name you can’t pronounce for him. By the time you both settle in at the dining table with your plates in your lap because there’s no room left to rest them, he’s worked through the subway ride back to the city and reached the clear climax of his tale, the unpaid internship you’re all praying will finally land him a real job. 

You sink your teeth into the food just as he strikes up a conversation with his boss, and it’s amazing, as you expect. Off-brand pasta and cheap jarred sauce and gritty cheese dust, saved from mediocrity by a sale on Italian sausage and Taylor’s phenomenal blend of spices sending up extra notes of onion and basil with every chew. You break into his one-man dialogue to compliment him, and he grins and tells you thanks but it’s missing something. You catch his drift, and slide from your seat to pull the bread loaf from the pantry. You spread a few slices with butter and dust them with garlic powder and parmesan and pop them in the toaster oven and boom, garlic bread. You toast your toasts before crunching into them together. He’s right, the pasta was missing this. Teamwork. 

It strikes you as you watch him brush crumbs off of his beard that if he doesn’t know about the kiss, then he probably needs to. You’re a really shitty metamour if you don’t tell him, and like, just look at him, a gigantic teddy bear of solid muscle smiling sheepishly because it seems like that’s the only way he knows how to smile. You can’t hide anything from that face. You’d be a terrible partner if you did, and a worse friend, and you need to say something confess anything its driving you crazy—

Except if RJ did tell him, then it’s just you blowing your shit over something really stupid again. Causing stress. Being a pain. You tell yourself, stubbornly, to trust your partner, and put the whole goddamn thing out of your mind already.

It’s easier to do than you expected. You let your mind follow the path of his words instead of its own disastrous trail and before you know it an hour has passed, and you’ve barely noted the beats of the conversation, the pauses, the dips and turns and eddies of the stream-of-consciousness running between the two or you. They’re too familiar for such attention to detail; when you’ve paddled this same stream so many times, heard Taylor’s soft voice tumble over the same names and places and events and emotional beats every night for almost a year now, it’s hard to get caught on anything. You work with the current where you need to, nodding and commenting and making all the right mouth noises at all the right times, but after a bad day like today, all you really want to do is close your eyes and let yourself float along with Taylor’s words wherever they take you. It’s the first time all day you feel truly at ease. Its familiar. It’s home. 

You insist on getting the dishes when you finish. It’s the least you can do in return.

“Did you want to talk about therapy?” He suggests, at long last, only as you’re pulling forth the blackberries from the fridge in preparation for RJ’s return. She’s late, but you’re only like 38% worried about it. Taylor said she dropped him a text to tell him she was running a little late. It’s been longer than a little by now, but Taylor doesn’t seem concerned, so you’re only partway convinced that she’s died in a terrible fiery subway collision. 

You don’t mention that, though, because it’s stupid. You just nod. The apartment is safe and warm, and Taylor is a good man, and the nip of alcohol in your blood is bracing, and all that combined is working out the kinks in your tense mind like a trio of psychic masseuses, and you think you can do this. “Um, sure, if you think? What do you have to say?”

“Probably nothing you didn’t already know.” Taylor admits lightly, as he rises from his seat. He plucks one of RJ’s blackberries off the top of the carton you’ve just opened and pops it in his mouth. 

“You know you’re supposed to rinse those first, dude?

“I mean, you did go to therapy for a while, right?”

You give a snort of laughter. “You mean the Jesus lady? Yeah, no, that does _not_ count.”

“Still, it gives you a sense of what you’re looking for.” He reasons. His arms fold crisscross on the countertop as he leans against it, watching you pan for berries with the colander. “It’s important to know that you’re not interested in anyone religious. Here, do you need a bowl for those?”

“I can get that.”

He’s already off to fetch it. You tell him to make that two, and he brings back three. You pour in the rest of the carton. “Okay, so… not religious. And that’s a good start?”

“Rules out anyone in a church, so, yes. And when you know what you don’t want, you can start figuring out what you do.” Taylor continues. He sounds like a second grade teacher explaining multiplication tables for the first time. “What is your end goal in seeking therapy? What treatments are you willing to try? Would you prefer a man or a woman?”

“Does that matter?”

Taylor shrugs. “It does if you think it does.”

That gives you pause for a moment. Your throat works in a swallow. “… can I ask for like, another bi poly guy, or something?”

“Probably not.” He says which a chuckle, which, rude, you like completely serious here, if you’re gonna be shelling out your insurance on a guy with a dumb rolly-end couch you’d sort of like him to know what you’re dealing with. “Though, if you want someone queer-friendly, that can be arranged easily. Any idea what you want to get out of it?”

“Normality?” You try. “Sanity?”

“And what’s that look like to you, then?”

That question hadn’t even breached your mind. You don’t think it’s ever even been on your radar, ever, at all, and all the control rooms monitoring that radar are blaring emergency alarms because this was a terrifying enigma, a UFO of Lovecraftian comprehension, and no one could possibly know what would leave the vessel when it touched down. 

You’ve…. never been normal, not in the way you know everyone else means it. You can’t remember a day without fear crowding your thoughts out or unshakable worries sapping your attention and energy away. 

What was it like past that? 

What was it like, being unlike anything you’d ever been before?

“Felix?”

What? What, oh, no, you’re here, you’re here. That wasn’t phasing out of existence entirely, this was just, like. This was normal zoning out. You’re fine, you’re fine. Taylor doesn’t look convinced. He’s staring down at your hands, which are still turning berries around over and over and over again. Your fingers are just starting to go all raisin bran and oh fuck the water bill. You turn it off quickly and pull down a paper towel to start patting them dry. You try to focus on them, buildup a wall of blackberry thoughts to hold back the tide that’s rising in the back of your mind, but it’s no use, the perimeter’s been breached and the tide rushing through has already uncovered the anxious trash you’ve been struggling to keep buried.

“Were you going to put maple syrup on them?” 

You shrug. That’s how RJ eats them and you could go either way, really, except yes you heathen want to bathe in the sugar right about now. Sugar is a comfort, and comfort is what you need to fend off the sudden irrational fear that RJ isn’t coming home. It’s stupid, you know it’s stupid. Knowing doesn’t help.

“Here, do you want me to get it?”

You wave him off and tell him to sit down, but he ignores you, crosses back to the fridge and starts rummaging about in the door. Every noise he makes shuffling ketchup and soy sauce around rubs on your nerves like a cat being pet backwards. Does he think you can’t handle this? Because you can totally handle this, thanks. He’s too nice to you. He deserves a break, he’s been up since god-awful o’clock this morning. 

“Well, you had a bad day,” Taylor points out with a kind and easy shrug, and yeah no he totally doesn’t trust you to handle this. Look at him, he’s even pouring out the exact amounts of maple syrup you and RJ both like into your respective bowls. Wiping the syrup from the rim and tugging it back on snugly the way you always forget to do because he’s perfect and wonderful and you don’t need him taking care of you don’t deserve it right now because you kissed his fiancé and wow you thought you dealt with that one already and you feel completely and utterly convinced that he doesn’t know that and that you’re just a horrible cheater. You grab down the little jar of cinnamon that RJ likes from the spice rack before scooting to the pantry, and ask him if he wants chocolate chips. It’s not enough to repay him but it’s a start.

“Yes, please.” He calls back easily, though his mouth is drawn down into a slight frown. He’s getting upset. Oh god oh god you’re pissing him off, aren’t you? How? You’ve seen him get pissed off before, it’s freaking scary. It happened at lot in the beginning of this V you call home. You remember just how fucking long it took for Taylor to get on board with the whole poly thing, how many hours of negotiation went into putting your shared lives in place, how the first time you took RJ in your arms and told her you loved her the jealousy burned fierce and horrifying in his eyes and his fists curled up like he was going to throw a right hook square in your jaw, and your body locked down, shut in, switched to self-defense mode because you knew what was going to come next. That it never came, that Taylor took a deep breath and solved that dispute the way he solves all disputes—with honest and mild discussion—means jack shit to your overstressed limbic system right now.  
Taylor’s way calm for any of this. He has no idea. He has no fucking idea. “Sit down and take a breather, Felix, I’ll make you some tea.”

You’re fine. You’re fine. You can make your own tea, you just want him to sit down, god, please, stop getting so close to you to pick up the cinnamon. You turn to glance at him, Great Value semi-sweets clutched in one fist, to catch him yawning and rubbing one eye as he pops up the lid of the jar and even with the fear boiling in you it’s like a Pavlovian trigger of friendship, you swoop in and you nudge him aside, or at least you try, because as strong as you’ve become he is Literally a Tree and it doesn’t work. You’re scared of your memory of him, and you’re concerned for the reality of him, and the clash and blend of those two emotions makes goosebumps pepper your arms and your hands quake as you tell him he works too hard, that he doesn’t sleep enough, that you’ve got this, that you want to just please want to do something for him. 

“I want to help you too.” Taylor’s voice is exceedingly reasonable. Yours keeps pitching and amping with emotion but his stays on a single even keel that diffuses all your disperse emotions. Usually its relaxing, but right now, it just frustrates you, and you’re left feeling shuttered off with no valve for the steam building in you. You’re still waiting, always waiting, for the day he finally does what you know comes next in these fights. Some days it’s genuinely harder on you knowing it’s never to come. That’s all assuming this is a fight, though; you’re operating in that mode but something in Taylor’s curious and concerned gaze is starting to key you in to the fact that maybe you’re the only one who thinks it is. 

“Felix, please?” He raises his hands, as if in truce. “I’m tired, you had a bad day, RJ’s working late, the world is on fire, and the landlord just raised the rent. Can we just please all take care of each other for tonight, and maybe not do the… whatever you’re doing? Because you’re making me uncomfortable right now.”

But you don’t need them doing things for you. They do enough for you already. They put up with your shit and assure you and comfort you and cook for you and encourage you and accept you and two days ago when you couldn’t handle calling for fucking Chinese food Taylor took care of that for you too. Apparently now they kiss you in public, and don’t hurt you for the privilege, and then stick by you even though you can’t find anywhere in you the trust to remember that they won’t hurt you. It’s more than you deserve and you know it. Whenever you can, every second that you have the energy, you need to do things for them, thank them, show them you care. Apologize. Justify your place here. 

But—

But alright, alright. 

This mess within you, the fearful expectation mingled with the ardent care, can’t sustain itself. The fear peters out in the face of his calm eyes, his open palms, and the care can’t bear to make him uncomfortable, even if it makes you feel weak in the process. You hold out the chocolate chips and he shakes his head. His voice makes you want to bury your face in shame. “Nah, you get that for me. I’ll get the tea for you.”

You nod. Pause, and then a sigh. 

“Do you need to not talk for a moment?”

Are you that obvious? Your jaw feels welded shut for some reason. He gives another sigh, and self-loathing breaks inside of you like glass, stabbing all your innards with the shrapnel, but when he steps past you he lays his hand on your shoulder, pulls you into a softer redux of the clipped bro hug.

“It’s fine.” He whispers. “Bad day. We’ve got you.”

You don’t feel like you deserve the comfort that washes over you. You kind of want to just like… live in it for a bit, even if his shirt smells sort of like day-old Cheetos soaked in motor oil. You’re not even sure how. You’ve never seen him eat a Cheeto once. 

He’d not much on cuddling guys, so he doesn’t stay, patting your shoulder gently before drawing away. It’s not as much as you want but it’s enough. It’s enough.

By the time you’re able to speak again, the tea is done, and so are your bowls of berries. They’re frankensteinian abominations of fructose and sucrose and spice and cocoa flavors thrown hodgepodge at a wall and blended into a stoner’s fantasy. Yours tastes amazing alongside Sleepy Time Vanilla. It’s maybe ten minutes later and you and the literal best metamour on the planet are both curled on opposite ends of the couch bullshitting by the time the door opens once more and RJ walks in. She shuts it fast behind her and leans back against it to sigh deep, one hand running over her face, then proceeds to kick off her heels without regard to the safety of the man now hurrying over to greet her. Taylor scoops her up in his arms before she even has the chance to say hello, and she’s so tiny compared to him its almost comical, but there’s a genuine, all-encompassing adoration in the way their mouths meet that it shatters all the humor. It’s how he’s always greeted her, every single day since he moved in.

You stay back and watch. You always stay back and watch, because this isn’t your moment. It’s theirs. 

Jealousy burns in you at the sight, but it’s a disconnected jealousy, coexisting awkwardly alongside the usual spill of joy that fills up all the cold spaces the day has eaten away from you, like a coffee mug getting topped off. They break apart and RJ looks so, so happy to be in Taylor’s arms, to gaze up into his bearded face, and wow the compersion is intense today, just what you needed, thank you. 

But the jealousy is still there too, and you feel like it’s petty but boom there it is. Once you had two men who kissed you the same way when you got home, held the same adoration in their eyes when you picked them and held them close. Now the only kisses you get are RJ’s unexpected liplocks apparently, and all that did what set off a mental clusterfuck of what-yes-no-????, and like it was only in your fucked-up brain that it did but still. Taylor probably knows. In here, on the tail end of the hurricane that ripped your day apart, it’s easy to remember that Taylor probably knows. 

They break. Small words of greeting and affection. She’s had a rough day too. Something about someone screwing something up with some number or another somewhere and throwing an entire account so far into left field that its sailed well over the stands and crashed through the window of some poor soccer mom’s conservative white minivan. Her feet hurt. He presses another kiss to her mouth, full of tender affection, and steers her over to the bowl of blackberries still waiting on the countertop. “Hope you don’t mind, we ate the rest of the carton ourselves.”

“Assholes.” Her voice is ripe as the fruit with affection as she picks it up, lifts a spoonful of gooey mixture into her mouth. Her eyes do that thing where they roll back into her head just a little, semiorgasmic, like a lady in a yogurt commercial. “Oh fuck yeah…. I needed that. Thanks, both of you, really.”

She crosses over to the couch, still sucking the spoon as if the metal itself were flavored by proxy, and plops down beside you. Now it’s your turn, and Taylor’s the one who stays back while you pull her into your arms and she hugs you back, tangling together like wrestling octopi as you drag her onto your lap. She turns her head to kiss your cheek and give a little nose nuzzle against your face, and that’s normal, thank god. The Public Kiss is some strange new territory you guys need to have a Giant Fucking Conversation about, but the nose nuzzle, that’s normal. You wonder again if Taylor knows, but it’s hard to care about right now and your nerves are knocked aside as you fall together against the arm of the couch. You settle there, legs outstretched over the cushions, her face nestled in against your chest. You take a peek down at her. 

Her eyes are bright. Her sleek hair is down from its clip and tangled up against her cheeks. Her eyeshadow is kind of smeary along her left eye and only a trace of red lipstick sticks at the corner of her mouth. “Heyo Twinkie, how are you doing?”

“Good.” And like it almost feels pretty spot on? “I’m good. Really.”

“He’s been a handful since I got home, actually.” Taylor’s voice is good-natured now, the hand that shoved your face as he passes by to sit at the other end of the couch quite caring indeed. “Starting fights over who gets to make you dessert. Terrible stuff, he should see someone for it.”

“Dude…”

His eyes flick up to you quickly, suddenly nervous. “Too soon, Felix?”

You almost say yes, but, fuck it. “This day has been nothing but me being a nervous wreck. For the love of god, please, joke about therapy. Normalize it.” 

His face eases into a smile. RJ leans over to pick up her dessert from where she’s sat it down, and settles comfortably on her back in your arms. “Shut up, both of you, and someone take my pantyhose off.”

“Already?” That’s fast even by her standards. “Wha’d the pantyhose ever do to you?”

“Pantyhose are tools of the heteronormative patriarchy and also fuck them.” With a chuckle, Taylor begins to slip her pants off first, then the offending pantyhose. “Also someone rub my feet.”

“Taylor? Your fiancé is being super demanding again.”

“Buddy, she’s in your arms right now, that means she’s your problem.”

None of you are really laughing outright, but there’s humor and goodwill laced within the fabric of every word. You’ve only got another hour or two, before Taylor has to go to bed, before RJ needs to go to work on the monthly budget, before you need to try and sort yourself out for tomorrow because you can’t afford to miss another day at work. You three make the most of it.

It’s been a bad day. But, considering everything, the way it ends feels very good indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Check back in on December 13 for a new chapter.
> 
> If you prefer, you can track this story on Tumblr at https://felixstory.tumblr.com/ (though we're STILL having some technical difficulties).
> 
> If you'd like to support this story, I have a Patreon for it over at https://www.patreon.com/kittygee


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